


Treaty

by LostTurtle



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 14:11:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10024226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostTurtle/pseuds/LostTurtle
Summary: A woman shrouded in darkness flees across the desert, and a man chases after revenge.





	

“Tristan, go feed the pigs!” A mother yelled from somewhere within a half-standing farmhouse.

“E’m already going ma!” Yelled Tristan as he shouldered open the screen door with a resounding creek as hinges yelled their protest. He balanced the feedbag precariously over his shoulder, wire thin legs shaking underneath the weight. He made his way across cracked stone and dried out weeds starving for water. His father’s old army hat tipped precariously to one side threatening to fly away. He dropped his burden to the ground as he came to a large set of wooden doors. The towering oak facade of the barn loomed ahead, the shadow cast by the noon sun stretching almost to the house itself.

He remembered when his father and Uncle Simon had built the farmhouse after the old one was set ablaze in one of the Big Storms. It took weeks of hard labor and lots of waiting for the next timber shipments to come into town. Pa had taught him how to use a hammer properly and Uncle Simon showed him how to play devil’s fingers but only when his father wasn’t lookin. He was bad at first always catching his fingers on his hunting knife, but the work was long and by the time the farmhouse was properly standing he was able to even beat Uncle Simon. Got enough money on the wager, to go and buy some of those candies from the general store. That was the last time he saw Uncle Simon, he died in the war just like Pa did. Leaving him and his mother to take care of the farm. Pa was always the one to carry the feedbag, but Tristan had to do it now.

Calloused hands gripped at the large wooden bar that held the doors shut and with a grunt of effort he pushed it up and out letting the wood thud against the dust. He pulled the door just enough to let himself in but not enough to let the warmth out - just like pa had taught him, and dragged the feed bags inside. Immediately he was assaulted with the smell of crap and pig sweat. He always liked the cows more than the pigs. The cows knew when to mind their business and kept to themselves. The pigs? The pigs yabbered about all the places, grunting and grunting like they were at sermon. They fetched a good price at market more than any cow’s milk could get them at any rate.

The boy dumped the feed into the pig’s trough watching as the animals moved over taking in the scent of rotting meat and vegetables. Pa always told him that was the difference between men and animals, animals would eat anything that you placed in front of them. Humans had the common decency to make sure it wasn’t spoiled yet. The pigs made food clogged grunts as they pushed face-first into the gruel, yellow incisors gnashing and scraping against one another. He always did like the cows better. Content with a job well done he picked up the empty feed bag and made his way out of the barn.

While dropping the heavy wooden bar back into place something caught his eye out on the horizon. A large dust cloud marched forward towards him. Tristan knew dust. He knew dust like dust was a first cousin. This wasn’t the dust caught up by the winds and thrown up to dance upon the air. This was the dust of a storm rushing straight at him, dark and angry ready to consume. 

He bolted straightaway as fast as his legs could carry him towards the big old rock near the fence. The rock was good cover. Uncle Simon told him that. He said that the gods themselves had dropped rocks like these when they were making the world. Broader than a horse’s flank, thicker than molasses, and grey as the sky before a storm. “Rock like that kid.” His uncle told him. “Protect a man from anything thrown at him.”

As the dust could draw in closer he heard the telltale sound of gunfire ripping the silence out of the air by its throat. The boy peeked his head out just enough over the edge of the rock so that he could watch as the dust cloud got closer and closer. The call and response of gunfire getting louder. As it approached he could make out forms within the dust. Two figures atop horses, revolvers raised and exchange a hail of fire against one another. As they pass within inches of the rock, tristan's eyes widen in awe and fear.

The rider in front was a woman dressed in all black. She sat atop a horse dark as the night sky, eyes blazing red and dark smoke drifting off of it like a fire was blazing from within. Hair pulled back into a tight bun, her face was the picture of concentration not even seeming to register the boy’s appearance as she paced. In an arm made of out of shining bronze and clockwork she held aloft the biggest pistol that Tristan had ever seen and fired backwards towards her pursuers. 

Her pursuer wore a faded coat of blue and had hair white as cow’s milk. The sun glinted off of the thin gold spectacles that adorned his face as he pushed forward. His face mirroring his quarry in the same level of concentration, one hand leaving an intricately designed pistol adjusting from the heavy sway incurred during a gallop, the other clutched the reins of his steed as he snapped them pushing it ever forward. The steed itself was almost more breathtaking than the one that it pursued. It was the most beautiful stallion that the boy had even seen, white as the man’s hair. It was wrong though, parts of it weren’t made of flesh or bone but of metal and steel just like the woman’s arm. Angry bouts of steamed seemed to constantly push outward from its nostrils as it slowly seemed to gain on the other beast.

The man in blue fired off his gun. The women twitched to the left as the bullet soared past her. She turned to fire another round in response but cursed as all she heard was an empty click. He fired again this time hitting her steed square in its side. Where there should've been an angry splash of blood and bone there was only a jet of oily black smoke. A shot like that should of brought the horse down but it only grunted in response and seemed to move faster. The woman began to mutter something underneath her breath as she holstered her gun. Tristan watched as the smoke seemed to drift off the horse and condense in her hand like some sort of spear or barb. With a final shout in a language lost to his ears, the tendril fired forward. The man threw up an arm in attempt to block it but the tendril sneaked underneath and clipped the side of his rib cage. Blood spilled forth as darkness ripped through flesh like a knife on warm butter, the blow having enough force to pitch the man from his saddle and onto the ground face first.

Silence swallowed things up quickly as it did after bouts of violence. The only sound being the continuous ringing that danced in Tristan's skull. He hadn’t even realized that his hand was shaking until he saw it there trembling against the big stone. In and out, In and out he breathed until the hand came to rest against the stone. Ahead of about twenty feet the man remained where he fell. The mechanical horse standing next to him still as a statute. In the distance the dust cloud faded from view. 

Very slowly the kid made his way over towards the fallen man. His body tense watching for any movement as each footfall felt like the tremor of an earthquake. He can see the blood pooling about around the body. The dust below tainted red as it greedily drink its fill. At his feet lay the gun knocked from the man’s hands when he was struck. He looked towards the horse which looked back at him with a passive expression. He was able to get a good luck at the gun now up close. It was one of the prettiest weapons he had ever seen. Handle intricately carved from a single piece of smooth white birch interlocked with smooth untarnished steel with precision metal detailing done atop of it creating interesting and peculiar geometries. Slowly the boy reached down towards the gun to pick it from the ground, seeing it as a shame for something so pretty to be tarnished by the dirt.

“Wouldn't do that if I were you.” The boy froze. His head pivoted downward towards the ground. The man in blue was looking up at him, gold rimmed glasses bent and fractured yet still upon his face. 

“You ain’t dead.” Tristan blurted out.

The man in blue chuckled as he pushed himself from the ground slowly. Tristan tried to avert his eyes from the wound at his side. It was a nasty thing - whatever witchcraft that the woman had done flesh had been torn asunder worse than any bullet wound, blood trickled forth from torn flesh and muscle. The man in blue didn’t even seem to notice it, as he straightened out his clothes and calmly picked up his gun. “If only that was all it took to kill me.” 

“You need anything for that?” 

“You got a water trough?”

“Got one in the barn.” 

“Good.”

The man in blue stood there for a moment looking at Tristan with a puzzled expression on his face. It took Tristan just enough time for the embarrassment to kick in to realize that the man expected him to lead him to water trough. He nodded fiercely one or two times mumbling some variation on ‘sorry mister’ before he scampered back towards the barn. For the second time today he lifted up the big old oak board and pushed the doors open just enough to fit them both inside. He pointed at the trough by the pigs, noticing offhand that the feed that he had placed was already more than half gone. Pigs were always hungry.

He heard a high pitched yell from somewhere close. Ma probably wondering on what in the gods name was going on. He looked toward the man in blue who was inspecting the water with a prodding finger and decided it was safe enough to slip away. Making sure to make as little sound as possible he backed out of the barn even so the stranger glanced a single eye in his direction watching as he left. As soon as he was outside the view of the man, he made a full sprint towards the farmhouse going as fast as his legs could take him. 

As he bounded up the front porch his mother opened the door. 

“Your mother is the most beautiful woman to ever grace the land." Pa would remind Tristian whenever he had a moment and Ma would blush up a storm. At the moment though she didn’t look too beautiful. She looked a lot like when she found out that the War was happening. Hair frizzled, eyes frantic, any sense of composer left behind somewhere else. Hunting shotgun was clutched in her hand as she looked outward surveying the surrounding property. Her visage visibly lightened as her eyes fell upon her son unharmed.

“What in the blazes is happening out there boy?” She asked trying to hide the panic from her voice.

“Two folks were having a shootout. One of them got hit and fell off his horse.” Tristan explained.

She sighed. “Do you we have to clean up after another dead idiot? Don’t they know we have a schedule to keep?”

“He ain’t dead Ma.’” 

She froze and looked down at the boy. “What?”

“He got shot. And then he got back up.”

“Where is he boy?” She asked frantically peering over his head, surveying their land looking for any strangers.

“...The barn.” Tristan spoke up meekly.

“You let a stranger into the barn. With all the animals? The things we need to live..... You really are your father’s son sometimes. Idiots the lot of you.” She muttered already beginning to push past him and heading straight for the door.

“He was askin for water.”

“And if an aberration came up from the blasted Abyss askin for water would you give it to em?” Ma replied never looking over her shoulder.

“..Guess not.” 

They moved cautiously across the yard as if at moment, the man in the barn would pop out and start shooting at them. Tristan tried to explain the fact that the man seemed to have no intention of harming them, but his mother wasn’t listening to any of it. The noon sun beat down upon exposed necks and arms as the shadows of large vultures circled far overhead - drawn in by the spilt blood, lizards scurried past from each piece of dried foliage. The breeze picked up and from somewhere amongst the old wood something groaned and protested. They froze and Ma turned her shotgun to the barn door watching and waiting. The silence seemed to stretch on for lifetimes before they started to move again.

They came up to the barn door still half cracked upon just as Tristan had left it. The horse stood a few feet away idly seeming to pick away at some grass. Ma’s eyes seemed to widen at the sight of the mechanical abomination but found the resolve to keep her mouth shut as to not alert the vagrant inside; probably trashing the place and killing all her animals. Hand gripped against the side barn door and motioning for her son to get behind her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she flung the door open with all her might.

There was no bandit with a gun waiting for them to fire. Instead the man in blue was currently pressing a hot branding iron into the wound that he had received, shirt tossed away to one side revealing an alabaster white body marked with a patchwork series of scars that interlinked and danced among themselves. Some from knives, others clearly bullet wounds and others still from some sort of large animal claws or talons. Tristan watched in fascination as the hot metal pressed into the wound as it did the same black viscous smoke that he had seen the woman used earlier seemed to leak outward from the wound, falling to the ground and sizzling away like some sort of acid. After about a minute of contact he withdraw the branding iron and dropped it into the water trough sending steam spiraling upward into the air. 

He looked up towards the woman pointing the shotgun at his chest and the boy hiding behind her. He pushed the broken glasses up upon his face with a finger as he regarded the situation. He spoke with the even tones and diction of a royalist, far from home out in a place like this. “If you’re going to shoot me, please do it already. If not it’s dreadfully impolite to point one of those things at somebody.”

The women didn’t budge keeping the gun trained on him. “You're in my barn, using my property, and speak like the men that killed my husband. Give me one good reason not to shoot.”

“I assure you I didn’t intend on stopping here and you’re boy here opened the barn door so I assumed I had consent.” The man replied flatly though his composed visage seem to crack a little bit. “And my condolences for your husband, the War was a nasty thing.”

“You got no right telling me what the War was like, it wasn't on your doorstep, you weren’t fighting for your freedom. And now even after we won, you Royalist still control half the council anyway. And besides I own this barn, not the boy” She spat back. But then he thought about it for a moment and lowered her gun slightly. “But youse haven't made a move yet, so maybe you ain’t all that bad.”

“I assure you. I had every intention in compensating you for services rendered” He began one hand reaching towards his jacket pocket and the other automatically shooting upward in an open palm to halt the woman as she reflexively rose the shotgun ready to fire. He fished around for a moment before he produced a small shining piece of metal in his hand. He tossed it lightly over to her. “I assume this will be enough to cover the fee and maybe some food if you could spare it.”

She caught the coin in her and brought it up to her face. Her eyes widened as she examined the intricate piece in front of her. It was a gold standard, a year’s worth of work sitting in her hands like nothing at all. She felt it in her hands trying to see where the paint was or would smear away.

“It’s genuine. I assure you.” He called out answering the unasked question as he reached down towards where he had discarded his white linen shirt and began to shimmy it back over his head. She watched him for a moment before turning to look at Tristan.

“Go grab some food from inside. Quickly.” She explained lowering the shotgun and nodding her head out the door. The boy nodded and sprinted outside. “You know I was just reminded of something.”

“Hmm” The man responded is he finished putting his shirt on and soon the pale blue coat that seemed to stick to him like a second skin.

“Last time I was in town. There was a big hubaba some big bounty was out for two individuals. A mysterious woman in black and the white haired royalist that was pursuing her. Wanted for wanton destruction, murder, arson, among other things.”

“Oh you should never trust the town gossip. They have a habit of exaggerating things.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him “You don’t say.”

“Indeed. I never deliberately set fire to a property.” He admitted with something of a chuckle.

The boy came running back in a small bundle in his hands. He handed it over to the man in blue who opened it up to find some dried meat and bread. Nodding he began to tear away at the food with a ravenous hunger that neither the boy or his mother was expecting. It reminded Tristan of the pigs.

“Is she really a witch?” Tristan asked the man whose face was currently filled with half a mouthful of bread. He looked down at the boy swallowed and then wiped away at the crumbs that formed at the corners of his mouth with almost an embarrassment.

“Something like that.” The man admitted as he leaned over and dipped his canteen into the water trough filling it before he squeezed the contents out into his mouth.

“Why you chasing her?” The boy started. Almost immediately his mother stepped in apologetically placing a firm hand upon his shoulder. 

“Tristan leave the man be-” 

“Don’t worry about it ma'am,” The white haired man waved his hand as if to push her fears aside. He leaned down until he was face to face with the boy. “She’s did some bad things to some good people. I need to make sure that don’t happen again.”

He pulled away even as the boy’s face transformed in awe and wonder no doubt filled with tales of heroes and adventures. Couldn't let em peer too closely or the illusion might of all went up in smoke. Better for their to be heroes in the world than revenge driven sinners. He brushed whatever residue of food and dust remained on him as he stretched his neck left and then right. He could still feel the tension in their vibrating off of the woman, it was best not to push his luck. “Well I best be on my way. Thank you again for your hospitality."

“Mhm.” Replied the woman pulling the boy out by the collar of the shirt ahead of him.

The horse of steel and snow was standing a few feet away looking at them with impassive eyes. Upon seeing the man it snorted with what Tristan could only believe was the sound of approval. The man walked casually across the broken earth and easily vaulted himself atop his steed, metal appendages shining in the setting sun. He gathered the reins in his hands and with a slow trot began to move towards the small wire fence that marked the boundary of the property. He froze and looked down looking at the face looking back up at him.

“What’s your name mister?”

The man smiled. “Trust me kid you don’t want to know that... only brings trouble.”

And then the horse was kicked into a steady canter slow cloud of dust building behind it as it followed the westward skies drenched red with blood.


End file.
